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5a5638c
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I'm not sure what's more of a pain in my ass--being black or being a woman. I'm happy to be both of these things, but the world keeps intervening.
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Roxane Gay |
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b6f402e
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When people wield accusations of privilege, more often than not, they want to be heard and seen. Their need is acute, if not desperate, and that need rises out of the many historical and ongoing attempts to silence and render invisible marginalized groups.
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Roxane Gay |
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63b2a45
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likability is a very elaborate lie, a performance, a code of conduct dictating the proper way to be.
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Roxane Gay |
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4333286
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I knew too much about hurt, but I didn't know how much more a girl could suffer until I did.
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Roxane Gay |
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54b255c
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Pathologizing the unlikable in fictional characters is an almost Pavlovian response.
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Roxane Gay |
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1c5d0bd
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It took me a long time, but I prefer "victim" to "survivor" now. I don't want to diminish the gravity of what happened. I don't want to pretend I'm on some triumphant, uplifting journey. I don't want to pretend that everything is okay. I'm living with what happened, moving forward without forgetting, moving forward without pretending I am unscarred."
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Roxane Gay |
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5ff3a1f
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My true loves were and still are books and writing stories and daydreaming. Sports were merely a distraction keeping me from what I really wanted to do.
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Roxane Gay |
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8aa6458
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I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn't make certain choices for ourselves. I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom but know I am in no position to tell women of other cultures what that equality and freedom should look like.
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Roxane Gay |
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f9b1a81
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It seems that, if something makes you feel better, it is a healthy option. Want to sleep all day? That's okay. Drink too much? That can be a valid coping choice. Isolating yourself via a fear of the outside world? Self-preservation is important.
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Roxane Gay |
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ab42f15
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Two years ago, Hanna said she was going on vacation with Laura downstate and instead drove to Marquette and had her tubes tied. She wasn't going to end up like her mother, with too many children in a too-small house with too little to eat. Despite her best efforts, however, she has found herself living in a too-small house with too many people and too little to eat. It is a bitter pill to swallow.
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Roxane Gay |
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2b3d359
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This is the memoir of my body. My body was broken. I was broken. I did not know how to put myself back together. I was splintered. A part of me was dead. A part of me was mute and would stay that way for many years.
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Roxane Gay |
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4a92c19
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Estou sempre me atendo a esperanca do amanha.
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Roxane Gay |
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95018c4
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A maioria de nos tem versoes de nos mesmos que nos deixa apavorados. Temos esse corpo imperfeito e nao sabemos exatamente como lidar com ele. Temos essas vergonhas que guardamos para nos, pois mostrar-nos como realmente somos, nem mais e nem menos, seria demais.
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Roxane Gay |
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4066c28
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Ha, no entanto, uma ansiedade em ser voce mesmo. Existe a pergunta que assombra, um "e se?" que esta sempre no ar. E se o que sou nunca for suficiente? E se eu nunca for certa o suficiente para alguem?"
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Roxane Gay |
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566452f
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Por que encaramos os limites que as pessoas criam para si mesmas como desafios? Por que vemos algo que impoe um limite e o forcamos?
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Roxane Gay |
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e5d0ffe
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Nunca conhecerei nada alem disso. Nunca conhecerei nada melhor que isso. Ai, penso: Se eu sou realmente infeliz, se minha vida e realmente tao dificil, por que ainda nao faco nada? Com frequencia, eu me olho no espelho e tudo que consigo me perguntar e: Por que? O que sera preciso para que voce encontre forcas para mudar?
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Roxane Gay |
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5411c2b
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There were a great many people in my own life who saw my body before they ever saw or considered me.
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weight
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Roxane Gay |
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69fdb77
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I could easily become a shut-in, hiding from the cruelty of the world. Most days it takes all my strength and no small amount of courage to get dressed and leave the house.
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weight
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Roxane Gay |
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176dc9e
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When a black person behaves in a way that doesn't fit the dominant cultural ideal of how a black person should be, there is all kinds of trouble. The authenticity of his or her blackness is immediately called into question. We should be black but not too black, neither too ratchet nor too bougie. There are all manner of unspoken rules of how a black person should think and act and behave, and the rules are ever changing.
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Roxane Gay |
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485f21b
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He was the first man who did not see through her.
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Roxane Gay |
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766b8b2
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There is nothing more desperate and unrequited than the love an unpopular girl nurtures for the cool kids.
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Roxane Gay |
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52be0f9
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I am learning to care less what other people think. I am learning that the measure of my happiness is not weight loss but, rather, feeling more comfortable in my body.
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Roxane Gay |
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b184872
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I wish there were viable alternatives for students who would rather be anywhere but in a classroom.
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Roxane Gay |
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df1a3e8
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I watch movies like Rosewood or The Help and realize that if I had been born to different parents, at a different time, I too could have been picking cotton or raising a white woman's babies for less than minimum wage or enduring any number of intolerable circumstances far beyond my control.
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Roxane Gay |
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69d2474
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People will always respond differently to the story of a sexually abused third grader than they will that of a young woman who is violated by a friend at a booze-soaked house party. There is a kind of fairness in that, since they are very different stories. Yet, in many ways, they are so intimately intertwined: they both rely on the belief in ownership of the vulnerable body, whether female or child or both. The idea that one violation is v..
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Roxane Gay |
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66ba94f
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Being useful was a balm.
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Roxane Gay |
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c04a7fc
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If I must share my story, I want to do so on my terms, without the attention that inevitably follows. I do not want pity or appreciation or advice. I am not brave or heroic. I am not strong. I am not special. I am one woman who has experienced something countless women have experienced. I am a victim who survived. It could have been worse, so much worse. That's what matters and is even more a travesty here, that having this kind of story is..
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Roxane Gay |
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930db7b
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Vivia sonhando acordada e detestava ser tirada dos meus sonhos para lidar com coisas como viver.
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Roxane Gay |
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cc8268c
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All too often, when we see injustices, both great and small, we think, That's terrible, but we do nothing. We say nothing. We let other people fight their own battles. We remain silent because silence is easier. Qui tacet consentire videtur is Latin for "Silence gives consent." When we say nothing, when we do nothing, we are consenting to these trespasses against us." --
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Roxane Gay |
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0e6a179
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We need to end the system where it is only white men who decide when a woman--in any position, "privileged" or not--is deserving of power and agency."
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Roxane Gay |
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8b6caea
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If readers discount certain topics as unworthy of their attention, if readers are going to judge a book by its cover or feel excluded from a certain kind of book because the cover is, say, pink, the failure is with the reader, not the writer. To read narrowly and shallowly is to read from a place of ignorance, and women writers can't fix that ignorance no matter what kind of books we write or how those books are marketed.
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Roxane Gay |
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62433c8
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Feminists are celebrating our victories and acknowledging our privilege when we have it. We're simply refusing to settle. We're refusing to forget how much work there is yet to be done. We're refusing to relish the comforts we have at the expense of the women who are still seeking comfort.
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Roxane Gay |
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fb71f2f
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It's hard not to feel humorless, as a woman and a feminist, to recognize misogyny in so many forms, some great and some small, and know you're not imagining things. It's hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you're going to float the fuck away. The problem is not that one of these things is happening; it's that they are all happening, concurrently and constantly.
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Roxane Gay |
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35f8845
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Over and over again we tell you it is acceptable for men--famous, infamous, or not at all famous--to abuse women. We look the other way. We make excuses. We reward these men for their bad behavior. We tell you that, as a young woman, you have little value or place in this society. Clearly we have sent these messages with such alarming regularity and consistency we have encouraged you to willingly run toward something violent and terrible wi..
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Roxane Gay |
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e89adea
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I am a bad feminist because I never want to be placed on a Feminist Pedestal. People who are placed on pedestals are expected to pose, perfectly. Then they get knocked off when they fuck it up. Consider me already knocked off.
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Roxane Gay |
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75c94b2
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I'm more interested in a show called Grown Women about a group of friends who finally have great jobs and pay all their bills in a timely manner but don't have any savings and still deal with sloppy love lives and hangovers on Monday morning at work.
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Roxane Gay |
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16e5253
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What goes unsaid is that women might be more ambitious and focused because we've never had a choice.
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Roxane Gay |
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dd64acf
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Feminists are 'just women who don't want to be treated like shit.
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Roxane Gay |
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f49f521
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Good feminists don't fear the sisterhood because they know they are comporting themselves in sisterhood-approved ways.
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Roxane Gay |
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733d319
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In literature, as in life, the rules are all too often different for girls. There are many instances in which an unlikable man is billed as an antihero, earning a special term to explain those ways in which he deviates from the norm, the traditionally likable.
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Roxane Gay |
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b07edc1
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I wanted him to fill the loneliness, to ease the ache of being awkward, of being the girl always on the outside looking in.
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Roxane Gay |
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d2ac1dd
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Many feminist communities use trigger warnings, particularly in online forums when discussing rape, sexual abuse, and violence. By using these warnings, these communities are saying, "This is a safe space. We will protect you from unexpected reminders of your history." Members of these communities are given the illusion they can be protected."
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Roxane Gay |
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909cd31
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When I read the books, though, I could pretend that a better life was possible for me, one where I fit in somewhere, anywhere, and I had friends and a handsome boyfriend and a loving family who knew everything about me.
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Roxane Gay |
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026ad20
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Life, apparently, requires a trigger warning. This is the uncomfortable truth: everything is a trigger for someone. There are things you cannot tell just by looking at someone. We all have history. You can think you're over your history. You can think the past is the past. And then something happens, often innocuous, that shows you how far you are from over it. The past is always with you. Some people want to be protected from this
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Roxane Gay |